Abstract:

Nutrition is part of the curriculum in Portugal in different cycles of schooling, essentially centred on the idea of promoting a balanced diet with impact in human health. However, food options involved production and distribution processes that can impact in the environment and in animal welfare, especially animal-based food diets which includes meat, seafood, eggs and dairy products.

Many people have changed their diet as a result of a great awareness and knowledge of the negative effects of animal-based food. But if vegetarianism and veganism became popular from the 1960s onwards, they still represent minority options for most people. Even so, reductionism of animal-based food has been an alternative to a diet based on plants as well as the option between different types of animal-based food, e.g., fish instead of meat or poultry instead of red meat.

This study is part of a project which involves the discussion of socioscientific controversial issues in teacher training courses. It involved 197 pre-service teachers (179 – 90.9% female) from two higher education institutions (129 from an urban area and 68 from a rural one) attending primary education training courses. It had the following aims:
i) to identify the food habits of pre-service teachers of both institutions, and their main type of diet among five alternatives: lacto-ovo vegetarian; omnivore without any restrictions; vegan; lacto-ovo vegetarian and seafood; and omnivore with red meat restriction, giving a especial attention to the frequency of animal-based food consumption;
ii) to check differences between the participants of the two institutions located in the two contexts (urban and rural);
iii) to deepen the discussion of the impact of food choices in training courses, based on the results obtained.

To respond to these aims, a questionnaire was designed with following sections:
i) Frequency of weekly consumption of various types of food;
ii) More frequent diet, among the five already mentioned;
iii) Food chosen when eating out. As the number of participants per institution was unbalanced, the results are presented as percentages.

To compare the two groups in terms of the incidence of consumption of different types of food, the Mann Whitney U test was used with a significance value of 0.05.

The results show that animal-based food consumption is very frequent among the respondents in their daily lives, with the majority following an unrestricted diet, having plant-based diets a very low frequency. This finding is even higher among the participants of the rural institution. The result is particularly relevant, since the sample is composed mainly by females, with a higher level of education, two variables which in several studies influence a higher incidence of vegan and vegetarian options. Based on the results, a programme to discuss the impact of different diets was designed in both institutions to increase the information of the students about the impact of different diets in the three dimensions considered: human health, environment and animal welfare. It is hoped that this programme will have an impact on students’ personal food choices, since the sessions will analyse the impact of different diets, as well as the meals of their school canteens. An impact in the approach of the present issue in their future professional activity is also expected.

Keywords:

Nutrition, human diets, human health, sustainability, animal welfare.